


Thirst

by panther



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4269462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panther/pseuds/panther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merope's family goes to jail so she takes up a job at the Riddle house. Then she creeps closer and closer to Tom, plotting her potion all the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirst

Thirst. That is how Merope snares Tom Riddle. Getting the job on the estate had not been easy but she had worn her best dress and pulled her hair back and used her French skills to prove herself useful and intelligent enough. Many traders came to and from the estate and a maid able to communicate in their own tongue was enough for Tom's father to give her the job, or at least a trial. Every pureblood speaks French and while she may not have the magic her father insisted that she have, she at least has that. It takes no magical talent to speak French. French can be beaten into a young girl if every mistake equals a stinging hex. She spends her night charming her clothes and shoes over and over again until the magic sticks and they look like clothes the other maids wear. For the first time in her life Merope uses her wand to wrap her hair into curls. 

Some of the younger girls giggle and call her cross eyed but a hex or two soon takes care of them. Maybe she would have no chance against a trained witch but she can handle _muggles_. They get fired and she works her way closer to the main house and Tom. Now she greets people at the door, not the gate, and always with a smile. The traders comment on her lovely grammar and accent and Tom looks up from a list he is checking to frown at her. She nods her head in return and then looks to the floor. It is only appropriate. 

Tom's father insists on calling her Mary but that is ok. She realises he exists. That is good for the future children that Merope is sure they will have. There is still the matter of her position though. Tom is above her station in the muggle world and there is not much she can do about getting closer to him after she manages to become a server at the table. He has been trained to ignore people like her. In fact, the most attention she gets is when he is tending to his horses and sends for water. That is her in. It has to be. 

It does not take her long to get a hold of all the ingredients. Her father always kept a large chest of them under the window but they rarely had need for them. The book the love potion is in has so much dust on it that Merope coughs and splutters when she pulls it from the shelves and is glad her father does not see. She has failed in her cleaning here. 

The potion itself takes longer but it allows her to work out Tom's general habits and when he will be alone. The first few times he ingests the potion may make him a little dopey. She cannot have anyone suspecting anything when she is already known as the town tramp's daughter. More importantly it is known she never went to school, not even as a little one as many of the other servants did. Still, she must move as fast as she can. If her father returns and catches her then she is as good as dead. A squib turned house-elf is all that he will see. 

She makes sure to slip the potion into his afternoon water and only a little so he does not question the taste. He beams at her and thanks her for the drink and that is quite enough to begin with. Slowly, but surely, she increases the doses and Tom begins to talk to her, touches her arm, and then finally declares that he loves her. He announces it to his father who is outraged and declares Merope a tramp, firing her in the process. Tom breathlessly say that they should run away so Merope backs her bags, hiding her magical things at the bottom, and they set off for London in an automobile of all things. Merope is terrified the whole time but Tom holds her hand and points out everything of importance along the way. It takes them hours. 

In London Tom finds them a small flat and gets a job at a publishers. It is not a brilliant job but it keeps them afloat and when Merope suggests they get married Tom agrees enthusiastically. Every morning Merope puts her potion into Tom's tea and after a while she even stops feeling guilty. It is nothing more than other wives who add whiskey in her mind. 

A year later Merope's period does not come. At first, she thinks nothing of it. Being poor and undernourished Merope's period has come and gone with her health but after the second month of not needing her rags Merope begins to think and to hope. She makes a potion when Tom is out to work and when it turns blue she knows. She is so happy she begins to convince herself that if she stops giving Tom the potion that he will stay. She is so happy she begins to convince herself the love is real. She ignores everything the book says about children conceived under the power of the potion and despite reading it over and over she tells herself her child will love and be loved. 

She stops putting the potion in the tea every morning and makes it every second. She brews no more when Tom is at work. At times Tom glances at her in confusion and then he begins to spend longer times at the tavern. When she is showing he looks at her as if he has never seen her before, rips off the wedding ring and flees. 

She tells herself that he will come back. 

She tells herself that it will be ok.

Tells. She knows that it will not. Her father will never accept a half-blood heir. He certainly will not shelter one so she cannot go home and has no idea how to live in the muggle world on her own and outside of an estate. She works herself up and cries when Tom does not return. She does not sleep and loses weight and by the time the pains come she is a shadow of herself and herself was not much to begin with. 

In the end she merely gasps out the baby's name before she passes. She never realises what she has done. She never realises she has doomed both the worlds that bore her son.


End file.
